1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a print control device, a printing apparatus including the print control device, and a print control method.
2. Related Art
As the technology of ink jet printers serving as printing apparatuses advances, the definition and the quality of print images increase, the format of the print images becomes wider, and the size of image data to be printed and the size of print data (data enabling the ink jet printers to perform printing) based on the image data are increasing. This increases workload (time loss) in image data processes (a generation process of print data and a transmission process of the print data to a printing apparatus) performed each time printing is performed. For this reason, an increasing number of printing apparatuses are configured such that image data and print data which may be reused are stored and registered in the printing apparatuses in order to reduce the workload in reusing the image data and the print data, for example, to perform reprinting. In the reprinting, a print request can be made by specifying the registered data (the image data and the print data) without performing processes on the image data and the print data.
JP-A-2003-323270 proposes a printing system in which a reprint request file including identification information enabling a link to print data at a save destination is created in advance, and in response to a reprint request, reprinting is performed through file manipulation of the reprint request file. This printing system enables reprinting through the file manipulation of the reprint request file without reviewing an identification information list of the print data stored in a storage unit included in the printing apparatus.
However, the printing system described in JP-A-2003-323270 has a problem that a print request through the manipulation of the reprint request file may not be smoothly made when a plurality of storage media connected to a network are configured as a storage unit disposed in the printing apparatus to flexibly handle more pieces of data (image data and print data) and more print requests, or to effectively utilize resources. Specifically, the problem is that when data associated with the link in the reprint request file is inaccessible, printing according to the print request can no longer be performed, but at the time of making the print request, it cannot be determined whether or not the printing according to the print request can be performed. For example, a user does not know that printing cannot be performed until an error is notified in response to the print request. In other words, a user does not know the situation until printing is attempted. Data associated with the link in the reprint request file is inaccessible, for example, when network attached storage (NAS) in which data (image data and print data) has been registered is not activated, or when specified data (image data and print data) has been changed and it is no longer possible to access an expected link destination.